A Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., man charged with endangering courtroom personnel when he allegedly attempted to ingest sodium cyanide in an effort to take his own life after being sentenced to jail has been granted bail again.

Comment

By MIKE FORNESmike@cheboygantribune.com

Cheboygan Daily Tribune - Cheboygan, MI

By MIKE FORNESmike@cheboygantribune.com

Posted Apr. 17, 2013 at 9:35 PM

By MIKE FORNESmike@cheboygantribune.com

Posted Apr. 17, 2013 at 9:35 PM

CHEBOYGAN

A Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., man charged with endangering courtroom personnel when he allegedly attempted to ingest sodium cyanide in an effort to take his own life after being sentenced to jail has been granted bail again.

A bail bond of $10,000/10 percent was established Tuesday in 53rd Circuit Court for Scotlund Stivers, 52, who was brought back to the Cheboygan County Jail when a bail bondsman picked him up and revoked his bond after being told Stivers was planning to flee the country.

“When I picked him up and put the handcuffs on him, Stivers admitted to me that he had told David Allen that he in fact was going to run,” Dan Dahlman, of the I Uncuff Bail Bond Agency of Mount Pleasant, Mich., told the Tribune Tuesday by phone. “I don’t make a habit of canceling bonds; I’ve only done that probably three or four times, but if he takes off and I’ve given away $25,000 I won’t be in business very long.”

Stivers told Judge Scott Pavlich that Dahlman also kept his 10 percent of the bond, amounting to $2,500, that he put up when his bond was established.

“That’s the way it works,” Dahlman said, “and I’m not the first to cancel him. Another agency from Big Rapids did the same thing to him. I can’t take the risk that he’ll run.”

David Allen, Stivers’ court-appointed attorney Ronald Varga said, gave the bonding agency a rumor about Stivers due to a falling out over a business deal.

“It is our position that Mr. Allen has made statements that are uncorroborated,” Varga said in court. “Mr. Stivers has never been a problem for me. He has always returned my calls.”

Varga was successful in getting a new bond established for Stivers, but as of Wednesday afternoon he was still being held in the jail.

“Mr. Stivers has some health issues. I would dispute any allegations that he is a flight risk,” Varga summarized.

Stivers stated that his girlfriend has rented an Indian River motel room for them to stay in and could provide similar arrangements at a motel in the Sault if he is released to await trial.

Court records show that Stivers is due in court near the end of June for trial on the Cheboygan County charges. A separate assault case in Chippewa County is scheduled to be heard in late May. Among his delays have been a 2012 motion to discharge his original attorney and his failure to follow up on a forensic center referral downstate. All took place after his March 2012 suicide attempt in court.

Page 2 of 2 - Stivers’ troubles began nearly three years ago with the abandonment of three vessels in Duncan Bay that leaked oil, one of them still sunk in 18 feet of water and another abandoned on a sandbar.